


Shell

by GlitterGold



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Kink Meme, Major Character Injury, Prompt Fill, Recreational Drug Use, Robot/Human Relationships, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-12 22:53:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5684119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlitterGold/pseuds/GlitterGold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a bad fight renders his body irreparable, Nick is forced to transfer into a new model—a gen 3. It takes some getting used to, but Nora is here to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Reboot

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everybody! This was originally a fill for the kink meme. The prompt was for a FemSole/Nick story in which Nick has to unexpectedly upgrade to a more human body, and then deal with all the differences between the new body and his old one. There will be some angst, some fluff, probably some eventual smut, but the main focus is the difficulty of going from metal to organic, and how Nora and Nick's relationship develops around it. I may make some minor changes from the kink meme fill in editing.
> 
> Thanks in advance for reading, and please enjoy!

For the first time in over 200 years, Nick Valentine wakes up.  
  
It’s a strange thing. It’s like approaching the surface of a lake after having been under for... centuries. For long enough to forget there _was_ a surface, or at least forget that he had ever reached it. It’s dark. He takes in a breath, despite knowing that he doesn’t have lungs to fill. (No, that doesn’t make sense…) He can feel an ambient coolness on his skin, all over. (Even in the places where he shouldn’t—where there hasn’t _been_ skin to feel for years). A slow, steady rhythm throbs in his chest, radiating through him to the very tips of his limbs. Not a mechanical whirring, a beat. (Why would he think that? Why would there be _whirring_ inside of him?). And all of this is foggy, distant—underwater.  
  
A sound stretches into the infinite darkness. It doesn’t make any sense, but seems to have some vague sort of meaning. With an upward inflection, like a question.  
  
His lungs empty and fill again. Why are they doing that? He isn’t telling them to do that. A faint, reddish light begins to filter through the darkness.  
  
“---?”  
  
That same tone, a little more insistent. He’s pretty sure it’s supposed to be a word, but it just sounds like one drawn out note.  
  
Empty. Full. He can actually hear the air exiting and entering now.  
  
“…Nick? Can you hear me?” What a gentle sound. Like rocking in a boat on a cloudless night.  
  
He opens his eyes _(white, pain)_ then snaps them shut immediately, before any of the visual information can be processed. Black again. His lungs expand violently. He hears a little hissing sound from the direction of his mouth.  
  
The gentle voice says, “Hey, can you turn down the lights? …Thanks.”  
  
Through the filter of Nick’s eyelids, the painful light fades back to red.  
  
“Nick,” says the voice, and it sounds a little… tight. Anxious. “You gotta talk to me, partner. Say something.”  
  
_Nora,_ his brain helpfully supplies. It’s Nora speaking. He can’t quite remember at the moment, but for him to be in such a helpless state, something must have happened to him, which means Nora will be worried. That’s what Nora does—worry. When she isn’t busy saving people.  
  
He tries again. One eyelid cracks open. The other one follows. Then, together, they slowly widen until he can see all of Nora’s face, her dark skin a silhouette surrounded by a halo of pale light from above. It occurs to him that he must be lying down.  
  
He tries to make a sound with his mouth, but it’s silent. Suddenly he remembers there is more to talking than emitting a hum from your internal speaker while making shapes with your mouth. He tries to use his lungs. A croak comes out: “…Damn.”  
  
That wasn’t the word he expected himself to say, but the effect it has on Nora’s expression is miraculous. The pinched look in the woman’s forehead eases up. Her eyes start shining happily. “’Damn’ is right. God, Nick… Amari said it wouldn’t take long for you to wake up, but…”  
  
_Ah, that’s right. I’m Nick,_ he thinks. Or tries to think. Because somehow, even in his mind where there should be no filters, it instead manifests as a question: _Am I Nick?_  
  
He sucks in another breath. He simultaneously remembers and doesn’t remember the feeling of his chest being lifted up by his expanding lungs. The throbbing beat is getting stronger and faster. He says it again: “Damn…”  
  
He is a police officer in downtown Boston.  
  
He is a machine in a shanty town.  
  
Two warring streams of thought are trying to fit through the same pathway in his brain and he can’t take it. By muscle memory alone, he tries to sit up.

A slew of unbearably visceral sensations blasts through him. His hands rub against rough fabric and a sticky sound assaults his ears as his back tears away from the same fabric, slick with a feverish film of sweat (he _doesn’t_ sweat, he _can’t_ ) and he can feel hair that he doesn’t have (or does he?) standing up on the back of his neck and now he’s upright and he gets the feeling that he shouldn’t be because the room is spinning and he can feel himself shaking and his eyes won’t focus—  
  
“No no no, not yet… easy, buddy…”  
  
And then a small, strong pair of hands is gently but firmly pushing him back down. He doesn’t like that feeling any more than the others—skin to skin contact, too warm, too damp.   
  
He swallows. Shudders at the wet feeling of his throat contracting, the moisture in his mouth. “I’m… Nick? Nick Valentine?” A question, not a statement.  
  
Nora’s expression turns blank before going all pinched again. “Yeah, that’s right.”  
  
Inhale. “Which one?”  
  
It goes so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

\--

It takes three hours for Nick to wake up in every sense of the word, with the patient help of his partner. Gone is the grogginess, but the confusion is harder to shake. Here are the facts as he knows them:  
  
First—he is a synth.  
  
Second—he has the memories of a long-dead human in his head, in addition to the memories he has made as a synth.  
  
Third—sometimes those two sets of memories are harder to pull apart than a pair of magnets.  
  
And finally—he is in the basement of the Memory Den with Nora, and he has just had his mind removed from one shell and placed into another.  
  
Again.  
  
Things are coming back steadily now. The super mutant camp, the firefight, the bullet jangling around in his gut ("Nora, watch your six! Lucky you’ve got yourself a willing metal shield here or you’d be in real trouble…"), and the Behemoth that, quite literally, tore him limb from limb. He vaguely remembers falling on his side and spotting the bottom half of his body about twenty feet away, severed wires sparking at the waist. Not much comes to mind after that. Nora tells him he was awake the whole time, talking even, right up until she got Nick into the Den. She says his pain sensors were firing like crazy, making him barely capable of forming a full sentence, but still coherent enough to give his consent for… that procedure. To “upgrade” him. None of that rings a bell. But then, he supposes even a synth’s brain must have some method of blocking out traumatic memories in the interest of self-preservation.  
  
He’s been quiet for awhile, thinking, remembering. A hand falls on top of his and gives a light squeeze. Nora is looking at him—probably has been for a few minutes.  
  
“You okay?” she asks, her naturally bold voice going unnaturally quiet. “How are you feeling?”  
  
“…A little lost,” Nick admits. “That old bucket of bolts was my body for a long time. Gotta admit, I’ve grown pretty attached to it.” He attempts a smirk, but Nora isn’t looking anymore. She’s looking at the floor. Nick can see the anguish in her eyes, and he can deduce what she’s thinking. He doesn’t have to ask about it to know that the body— _his_ old body—is no longer in the room. Probably wasn’t in the room for any longer than it took to hook it up to the machine and extract whatever they needed from it. Nora wouldn’t have been able to bear looking at it any longer than necessary. She’s a tough woman, a rock, with a protective streak a mile wide. Maybe the strongest person he’s ever known, in either of his lives, but nothing hurts her like the suffering of others—particularly those she’s claimed as friends.  
  
Nick uses his free hand to pat Nora’s. He's caught off guard by how human it looks—covered with skin-colored skin and everything, none of that synthetic gray stuff. “I’ll be alright, doll. You can count on that. I’m starting to feel more like myself already.” Whoever the hell that is. “It might take a while to figure out which way is up, that’s all.”  
  
And how. It’s been 200 years since he last woke up, because it’s been 200 years since he last slept. Sure, one might call it “waking up” when he first became aware in his gen 2 body, but that was more of an activation—immediate, thoughtless. This is a proper awakening. It isn’t usually this disorienting—at least, it wasn’t for human Nick. He’ll have to get used to it, he knows. Sleep is a thing gen 3s need (or are programmed to _think_ they need. No one is quite sure.) He wonders, with a tiny thrill of dread, if it will be like this every time from now on. If he'll wake up feeling like he’s human, and have to relearn how to be a synth every damn morning.  
  
He’s had quite enough of that already.


	2. Interface

It’s almost a full day before he even finds out what he looks like. While getting his bearings in the Memory Den, figuring out the answers to some pressing questions, Nora has offered him a mirror more than once, but he’s denied it every time. He’s gonna look a good sight different from the dilapidated hunk of metal he used to pilot. In all likelihood, he’ll look closer to the _real_ Nick Valentine than the one he’s used to seeing. It’s not clear to him which possibility he’s dreading more—looking similar to Nick, or looking nothing like him. Either way will be jarring, so he tries to convince himself it doesn’t matter—to just be prepared for a shock no matter what. It’s not working.  
  
At about that point, Hancock learns what happened last night. You can pinpoint exactly the moment he catches wind of the story by the way the front door on the first floor _bangs_ against the wall loud enough to be heard two stories below, followed by rocketing footsteps across the floor, down the stairs, down the other stairs, and into the pod room, where Nick is sitting on the edge of a lounger contemplating the face-down hand mirror in his lap.  
  
To his credit, Hancock only stares at the unfamiliar face of his old friend for a few seconds before exploding. The next few minutes are filled up with a very anxious ghoul shouting about how _you get fucking ripped in two_ and _have to be CARRIED across the Commonwealth, into MY town_ and _nobody thought to tell me!?_  
  
Nick just calmly raises his hands in a placating gesture, wishing he had some cigarettes on him. Then Nora comes barreling down the stairs, looking frantic and angry and apologetic all at the same time. “Hancock! Don’t worry, he’s fine now! I’m sorry I didn’t send word, but you weren’t in town last night and I wasn’t exactly in the frame of mind to go sending couriers.” The last part sounds a little annoyed. Those crossed arms of hers are almost iconic.  
  
The mayor, for his part, glares huffily back and forth between Nora and Nick, makes a ‘tsk’ sound with his tongue, produces a hit of jet from his jacket and takes a huff to calm himself down (as always, he steadfastly ignores Nick and Nora’s synchronized looks of stern disapproval). This reaction comes from a place of concern—they both know that much about John Hancock.  
  
It takes a few minutes of explanation, and a few more puffs of jet, but Hancock is soon up to speed. And taking it all better than his initial reaction would indicate.  
  
“Hey, pal,” he says with a sideways glance at Nora. “Give us a minute. I wanna have a chat with our favorite detective.”  
  
Nora eyes him dubiously, but steps out and closes the door behind her. When her footsteps stop too soon, ghoul and synth both know that she’s just outside, listening in. Strong as hell, but a stealthy soldier she is not.  
  
“Don’t go too far, now,” Nick says, loud enough to carry outside. “The new lungs aren’t used to the chem fumes Hancock puts off. Might start to hallucinate.”  
  
Hancock gives him A Look before rebelliously pulling a few loose mentats out of his pocket. They stay cupped in the palm of his hand, though, as he seems to consider the new and improved Nick Valentine. “So,” he begins casually, “new face? I know what that’s like.”  
  
“I’m sure you do,” Nick acknowledges. He knows how Hancock ended up looking like this—knew him _before_ he looked like this. It was a drastic change. About as drastic as going from Nick Valentine, handsome human detective, to a shoddy, self-aware science experiment. If any natural-born person is equipped to understand something like this, it’s Hancock.  
  
Hancock gives him a once-over, head to toe and back again. Then he whistles lewdly. “Not bad, Nicky. Not bad at all. How d’you like it?”  
  
Nick looks away, eyes going distant. “Don’t know yet.” His fingers idly tap the back of the mirror in his lap. The noise draws Hancock’s eyes.  
  
“…Ah.”

Nick sighs through his nose. (He’s getting pretty good at this breathing thing. Learning new techniques all the time.) “It shouldn’t matter.”  
  
“Yeah, it shouldn’t. Smooth skin or parts falling off—either way, I ain’t hard up for attention. No skin off my nose.” He grins at his own joke. “But I can tell it matters for you.”  
  
The ‘why?’ is implied. “It’s not a matter of looking good or bad. After a few decades of traipsing around with half a face, you learn to let go of vanity. It’s the humanity of it.”  
  
Hancock pops a mentat into his mouth like a breath mint, staring hard. “Okay…”  
  
“What I mean is…” He’s never had to put it into words quite like this, though he has come pretty close with Nora. “I’m a synth. And by public consensus, that’s a bad thing. But _looking_ like a synth was my one saving grace. It got people to trust me—let ‘em know I wasn’t out to deceive ‘em. I’ve got no delusions about being human. I’ve never pretended to be. But now…”  
  
That’s not the entire truth. He doesn’t mention the part where he’s afraid to look too similar to Nick, or too different. He’s spent so long trying to be himself instead of who his implanted memories tell him he is. If he looks in the mirror and sees something even close to the original Nick Valentine, he can’t be sure the reflection and the soul searching and his continuous, decades-long identity crisis won’t all be for nothing. Something might snap back—make him unable to see himself as an individual, as his own man, anymore. But seeing any other human face… it just wouldn’t be right. He can’t imagine a face that would really look like him—the “him” that he is, or the “him” he’s trying to be. There probably isn’t one.  
  
While he’s thinking, Hancock shifts the tablet around in his mouth with his tongue. “Maybe you should actually _look_ at yourself before you go worrying about that.”  
  
Nick glances at him out of the corner of his eye, and decides he’s right. Overthinking it won’t make the end result any easier to swallow, no matter which way it goes. He braces himself, and flips the mirror over.  
  
His eyes meet… well, his eyes. Because that’s the most noticeable thing right off the bat, and with good reason. He doesn’t know how she pulled it off… or rather, they. Dr. Amari is skilled, but she's not a robotics expert, so maybe she brought in some sort of professional... but either way, it had to be Nora’s idea. Because his eyes—they haven’t changed. Same old bright yellow optics set into gunmetal orbs. He’s still a synth, identifiable even at first glance. And that tips the scale. His nerves give way to confidence, and he lets his eyes roam over the rest of the image, lingering on every detail.  
  
Thirty seconds pass, then a minute. Hancock scoffs good-naturedly. “What, you fallin’ in love with yourself over there? Come on, what do you think?”  
  
Nick gives a single slow nod as he tries to puts this shaky, chest-squeezing feeling into words. “It’s… different, alright.” But as his new lips stretch into a tentative smile, he can’t help but agree with Hancock’s assessment. "Not bad, though. Not bad at all."  
  
\--  
  
On the other side of the door, Nora smiles.


	3. User Friendly

_Thank god,_ Nora thinks, her back hitting the door as she slumps in relief. _He’s gonna be okay._  
  
But thinking it is not enough to convince her, so she whispers it to herself: “He’s gonna be okay…” She can hear the tears on her voice.  
  
After the panic of the fight, the rush to get him help, the hours and hours of pacing while she waited to see if he could even be _saved,_ the next thing she was most worried about was how he would take it all. He’s been through enough in his life already, too much for one person to carry alone. Unexpectedly waking up in a new body is something the average person never experiences, let alone twice. Just overhearing those simple words, _‘Not bad at all,_ is enough to set her mind at ease.  
  
And she’s glad it worked out for another reason: this procedure was damn hard to pull off. She had to call in some favors, and if she takes the tally after all’s said and done, she’s pretty sure she now owes a few.  
  
\--  
  
_It was Deacon first. He was never too far out of sight, even when he wasn’t officially traveling with her, so he was the first of her ragtag team of companions to find out about the incident. He didn’t even talk to her—just went straight to the people who knew best how to help, as if anticipating Nick’s needs (and Nora’s, by extension). Nora had just been preparing to run to the Railroad HQ when none other than Glory showed up, with someone in tow. J5-21. It was all very similar to the last time Glory appeared in the Memory Den—the time they gave Curie a new body. This synth’s mind was damaged to the point that a fix wasn’t in the cards. He was just a shell, unknowing and unresponsive, following orders in a fashion even less human then a gen 1. Still, Glory was admirably resistant—frosty, even. This would be the second time Nora used a synth refugee as a vessel for one of her friends, after all. Nora didn’t blame her in the slightest. But she also didn’t budge. Whatever her friends needed, if it was possible, she would do it. Even if it_ wasn’t _possible, she would do it for Nick.  
  
Then came the hours of pacing. Then came less than an hour of restless sleep, after Dr. Amari’s insistence. Then came the earth-shattering news that they might not be able to succeed at _ all, _because something about J5-21’s damages was resisting the introduction of new memories. Then came about fifteen minutes of soundless, wide-eyed, uncontrollable weeping.  
  
Then came Tinker Tom, of all people, to save the day.  
  
It was unbelievable how much the situation turned on its head mere minutes after he showed up. He and Amari fell into a think tank that blocked out everything else in the world—Nora couldn’t get a word in edgewise if she tried. It was like one of those TV shows that dramatized the lives of doctors or lawyers, except it was real. Two experts working together to solve a problem, one a sensible neurosurgeon and the other the quirkiest robotics geek on the planet. Despite their differences, though, something worked, and worked well.  
  
Whatever his idiosyncrasies, Tinker Tom really was brilliant. He came out into the stairwell where Nora was waiting and informed her that not only would they be able to transfer Nick’s memories and personality into the new body, he could also “pull a few other tricks” to improve it if she wanted. She almost said no—enough tinkering with her friend, no more taking risks with his life, as long as he was _ alive _then there was no need for any more._  
  
_But._  
  
_Selfishly, there were just some parts of him that she wanted to keep, that she couldn't stand to lose. Parts that were specific to his old body, which lay in the memory lounger like the lifeless heap of circuitry it now was._

 _His voice. It was one of the most comforting things in the world. More than once she had imagined what it would feel like to press her ear against his chest while he was talking, and maybe experience that deep rumble with more than one sense.  
  
His eyes. At first they were unnerving—circular yellow pinpricks of light following her in the darkness wherever she went. Sometimes, in an especially tense stealth situation, she would feel her heart speed up when she saw them, only to remember that it wasn’t some monster under the bed but a valuable ally watching her back. But that was when she first met him. Somewhere along the line, those eyes had become a source of security. No longer alarming, but calming. And, she sometimes thought in private moments, kind of pretty. And she remembered him telling her how the people of Diamond City warmed to him because he looked the way he did. She thought maybe, if just one part of him was recognizable and decidedly robotic, people would treat him the same as before (which wasn’t great, but it was better than if they decided he was an Institute spy and treated him worse.)  
  
She asked if Tom could make the changes. He said it would be done._  
  
\--  
  
Nora realizes, a little belatedly, that almost three days have passed between the accident and now. That’s a long time to be worried for someone’s life. It’s no wonder she’s been so wound up, or that the relief hit her so hard. She feels almost woozy right now, and she thinks she might actually be able to sleep if she were so inclined. But she stays with her back against the door until someone forces it open, pushing her upright.  
  
Hancock grins at her. “Nice job. Couldn’t’ve handled it better myself.” His smile falls as he peers at her. “Now go take care of yourself, will ya? The bags under your eyes are starting to get bags.” And he leaves without further ado.  
  
Nora forces herself to smile through the exhaustion and goes to see Nick again, but he’s in the doorway before she can take a step. Once again, she’s confronted by how different he looks. Human. Not _her_ Nick, not quite, not yet, but as the two men agreed, not bad.  
  
Pretty far on the opposite end from bad, really.  
  
“Hey, Nick,” she says, but gets no further.  
  
“He’s right, you know. You oughta get some sleep. I can’t have you worrying yourself into poor health now, can I?” He looks at her evenly. His eyes are shaped a little differently due to the two models having different eyelids and bone structures. They’re more downturned now, and not as wide open, but they’re just as warm as ever. She’s suddenly so glad she made that decision.  
  
She sighs and rubs a hand across her eyes. “I probably should, but… I dunno. I wanna be awake in case… I mean, you’re obviously _fine_ now, but I just…” Shit. She feels a lump rising in her throat. She thought she’d cried her fill already, but these are tears of relief, not grief. She slaps a hand across her mouth to cover up what she knows will be an ugly grimace, the kind you get when you’re sobbing hideously and you can’t stop. Her eyes squeeze shut, forcing out the first of this batch of tears. "Thank god you're alive…"  
  
It’s so typical of Nick to hold her when she’s feeling weak, but he’s never been so warm. His hands are hot on her shoulders—are they bigger than his old ones? They feel bigger—and as he gently strokes her upper arms, the trail of heat makes her shudder. In the way of physical contact, he’s never gone further than this—a friendly, albeit intimate, hand on her shoulder. She thinks it’s because he was always afraid she would be repulsed by his mechanical body (as if _anything_ about him could repulse her, as if he wasn’t the one thing keeping her grounded in this world). For his sake, she's never pushed it, even though she might yearn for a hug from time to time. But now she steps in closer and puts one arm around his waist, the other going up to clutch at his shirt. She feels him reciprocate, though a little hesitantly. Normally she would feel guilty about putting him in this position, but she’s so tired and so relieved and he’s so alive and close…  
  
Look at her. The guy almost dies, and _he’s_ comforting _her_.

“It’s alright,” he murmurs as her tears dampen his shoulder. “I’m not going anywhere. But you need to get some rest, sweetheart...”  
  
Nora almost lets herself believe that little endearment is more than just Nick’s quirk of speech.  
  
Reluctantly, she allows herself to be escorted upstairs. She’s vaguely aware of falling down on some mattress or other, and looking up through a veil of tears at Nick’s face. Despite it being a different face than she’s used to, there’s a gratifying sameness in his expressions. He smiles at her, half reassuring and half concerned, and it feels like home. That expression reaches his eyes, making his brows raise up a bit, which causes a few wrinkles to appear on his forehead. Cute…

Her vision begins fading on the image of him in the pinkish light of the Memory Den, with a set of stairs overhead casting sharp slats of shadow over his face. In the drunken nebula of near-sleep, she can’t help but think he looks like a hard-boiled P.I. straight out of a pre-war black and white film strip. The briefest thought occurs of him sweeping a mountain of paperwork off his desk and then backing her up against it with the force of his kiss. A little giggle escapes her.

  
_Well, shit,_ she thinks as her brain goes fuzzy. _I’m doomed._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually had a specific appearance for Nick in the original prompt fill, but after editing it and tossing it around in my head for awhile, I decided I'd like the folks on AO3 to imagine him however they'd like, so I adjusted the last bit to be more vague. I'll be using details sparingly when talking about his appearance.
> 
> If you hadn't noticed, I fudged the structure of the Memory Den a bit... or more than a bit. Hey, whatever makes the scene work, amirite?


	4. Intake

It’s a long way back to Diamond City. Not distance-wise, because Goodneighbor is probably the closest thing to a neighbor that the Great Green Jewel has. But the time it takes to make the trip is inordinately long, or at least it feels that way to Nora. She and Nick come across more ferals than usual, and only just manage to kill them all before anyone gets cannonballed by eighty pounds of charging zombie. The few super mutants that get in their way don’t go down half as easily. She thought she’d gotten pretty adept at dropping them, despite their size and superior strength, but her shots feel about as effective as when she first encountered one fresh out of the vault. She doesn’t say anything, but she’s got a sneaking suspicion why everything seems more difficult than usual.  
  
When Nick lets off a shot at a rabid dog, there’s no spurt of blood, no whine of pain. He’s been missing more often than not. Almost nonchalantly, Nora puts a bullet in its skull just before it lunges at the detective.  
  
Nora looks at him with some words on the tip of her tongue that she doesn’t want to say. “Nick…”  
  
He glances at her for half a second, then looks down, fedora covering his eyes and jaw clenched tightly. That’s when she knows it’s not just her imagination—he’s noticed it too.  
  
He lowers his pistol. “Sorry,” he says, and though he tries to sound casual about it, the underlying shame in his tone makes her heart seize up. “Looks like there are some connections that haven’t quite, ah… synced up yet.”  
  
That makes sense. There’s a pretty big technology gap between the third generation of synths and the second. His body is made of real muscle and bone and cartilage now, or close enough to real, rather than whatever mechanisms made him move before. Maybe he’s an inch taller or shorter than before. Maybe his shoulders are a little wider or narrower. Even slight differences in physiology could make for some pretty drastic results—for instance, she remembers having a whole assortment of troubles performing seemingly basic tasks when she was pregnant with Shaun. A changed body takes time to get used to.  
  
She almost accepts that explanation when she notices his hands shaking.  
  
She gives him her patented look of Firm Motherly Concern. “Nick… if you feel like you need to rest, I expect you to tell me.”  
  
He raises his head a little bit, just enough for her to see his downcast eyes. “Maybe that’s all it is…” he says. It sounds like he's talking to himself.  
  
She closes the distance between them, her concern real now. “Is something wrong?” If there’s a malfunction, she swears she’ll drag him back to Amari so fast…  
  
“Just not feelin’ quite right. Kinda… weak. This thing feels like it weighs about twenty pounds,” he explains, lifting up the pistol.  
  
Well… that’s not _good_ , but it could be worse, right? She feels like that sometimes, too, whenever she’s…  
  
_Oh my god._ She could smack herself. “I’m a dumbass.”  
  
“Beg pardon?”  
  
“Of _course_ you don't feel right, Nick. You haven’t eaten in _days_.” She knows she hasn’t seen him eat since he woke up, and he informed her that when she was sleeping he was by her side all the while. God only knew how long it had been since J5-21 ate before the procedure. His body is running on empty.  
  
Nick is silent for a few seconds. Then he rubs the back of his neck, looking even more embarrassed than before. “Ah… hadn't crossed my mind. I suppose that’s something I’ll have to do from now on, huh?”  
  
“Hell… As soon as we get to Diamond City, we’re hitting the noodle stand. No buts.”  
  
He raises his hands. “You’ll get none from me. Always wanted to see what the hubbub was about Tak’s cooking.”  
  
They continue on, Nora doing most of the shooting when it’s necessary, and both of them sneaking around threats when it’s not. Going down a particularly steep hill of rubble, Nora notices Nick’s footing is a little too shaky for comfort. She grabs hold of his elbow, just in case.  
  
Nick raises his eyebrows in amusement, wearing this terribly charming little smirk. “I’m not gonna _faint,_ Nora. You don’t need to be there to catch me.”  
  
“I believe you.” She doesn’t let go of his elbow, even after they’ve cleared the rubble. Beyond a quiet chuckle, he has nothing further to say on the matter.

\--

The stares are different now. There are more of them, for starters. Lots of raised eyebrows, a good deal of unspoken questions. There are one or two flashes of recognition when someone meets his eyes, but it decays into confusion and suspicion the longer they look. Feeling naked, he pulls the brim of his hat down to put something between the residents’ eyes and his as Nora practically drags him to Power Noodles. She pushes him onto a barstool and takes a seat next to him.  
  
“Nani ni shimasu ka?”  
  
“Two please,” Nora says, holding up a pair of fingers.  
  
Nick sits still for a moment, letting the familiar aroma of the broth and chopped vegetables calm his nerves. He’s going to be able to appreciate that smell in a new way in a few minutes. He tries to get enthusiastic about it. “Heya, Tak. Don’t suppose you recognize this mug?”  
  
“Nani ni shimasu ka?”  
  
He forces a laugh. Truth be told, he doesn’t have a clue what Takahashi is trying to say any more than the humans of Diamond City, but it’s a strange and sad little comfort to pretend they can have some kind of secret conversation, just two robots in a city that doesn’t want to understand them. “Yeah, it’s a different look all right. But don’t let the facelift throw you for a loop—all the software’s the same.”  
  
Takahashi doesn’t respond this time, as he’s too busy pouring the broth over a couple bowls of wheat noodles. Nick catches Nora looking at him out of the corner of his eye. He chances a glance at her, and her face goes all solemn and sympathetic. She puts a hand on his back. “Give it time, partner. I know it’s weird right now, but it’ll get better. You got used to it the first time, didn’t you?”  
  
He nods slowly and lets his eyes wander back to the counter in front of him, where a steaming bowl and a pair of chopsticks have materialized. But he’s thinking, _Did I? Was I ever really used to it?_ He shakes away the somber thoughts. He’s too hungry to be getting philosophical anyhow.  
  
Now, he knows _how_ to use chopsticks, logistically. But actually doing the thing is a mite trickier, especially with new fingers that don’t cooperate quite like his old ones, and that also happen to be shaking from malnutrition. His right hand in particular is proving rather defiant, since it now has skin, and muscle, and altogether more mass than he’s used to. Needless to say, he drops the damn things a few times in his quest to hold them right. Nora is in his peripheral vision with a waterfall of noodles halfway in her mouth, making tiny throaty noises as she tries not to laugh. He puts the chopsticks down and levels her with a glare (which is ruined by a smile that he can't hide fast enough). “Glad I can provide a show to go along with dinner. If you choke on those noodles, I’m gonna tell security exactly how it happened: _death by cruel, juvenile laughter_.”  
  
She can’t stop snorting and is forced to bite off her mouthful and let the remainder fall back into the bowl with a splash. Satisfied, Nick goes back to getting his finger position right, before deciding a fork is a better option after all. If he gives her any more reason to laugh, she actually _might_ choke, and wouldn’t that just be a dandy way to end the day?  
  
He twirls a bite-sized amount onto the fork and lifts it up, taking a moment to savor the aroma. He puts it in his mouth and chews a bit. Then he stops.  
  
Nora is watching him intently, having calmed down and swallowed her own bite. “…Something wrong with the taste?”  
  
Nick swallows without chewing further (thank god this stuff is slippery enough to go down easy…), and suppresses a shudder. The taste is fine, but the texture… something about it mirrors the way he felt when he first sat up back in the Memory Den. Too… organic. Visceral. Soft, and just… not at all like he was hoping. It leaves him feeling almost ill, which itself is a new and unpleasant experience.  
  
He looks up at Takahashi and sees that the bot is busy servicing someone else across the bar. As far as he knows, protectron models don’t have the self-awareness to feel insulted, but he doesn’t want to take a chance with the only other automaton in town he can stand. Quietly, he says, “Guess I wasn’t as hungry as I thought,” and puts the fork down.

Nora frowns. “Nick, you need everything a human needs now. That includes three square meals a day. One bite of noodles isn’t gonna cut it.”  
  
And he _knows_ that, but he just _can’t_. A wave of frustration and despair washes over him as it finally hits him that everything is going to be different now. He'll be eating substances he can't stomach, losing eight hours a day to sleep, dreaming about all the nightmarish shit he's seen in the last two lifetimes. Bleeding when he's hurt, sweating when he's hot, losing valuable functionality when he dares go without food or drink for a day. All of that lovely humanity and more, for as long as he lives...which could be a damn long time. He had only just settled into a tentative okay-ness with who and what he was, and now it’s back to square one all over again and he doesn’t know how he’s going to do it. He doesn’t _want_ to do it. But he's got no choice, because this is his life now, and if it isn't life it's death.  
  
He feels his throat tightening and—oh no. He knows this feeling. Like hell is he going to experience crying for the first time like this, out in the open and over something as stupid as a bite of noodles. _Change,_ he thinks, _change makes you emotional, whether you're a newborn baby or a rusted old bot._ He takes a breath and manages to make his voice steady when he says, “I just don’t know, Nora. All of this is… it’s too different to even process. My only standard for comparison is a few fuzzy memories from some bloke who lived hundreds of years ago.”  
  
Her eyes soften. He can see she’s realizing this is about more than a bad taste in his mouth, and she gives in, just a little. “At least drink the broth. There’s some nutrients there.”  
  
He acquiesces and lifts the bowl to his mouth. He’s had water since waking up, and that was no problem; maybe trying something solid so soon was just too big a step. He takes a small sip, and finds it’s acceptable. Tasty, even. All the flavor of the noodles with none of the consistency. He’s about to start drinking in earnest when the smell triggers a memory—buying lunch for a certain secretary so she could continue working without having to leave her desk.  
  
_Shit._  
  
The bowl clinks back onto the counter, and Nick’s head falls into his hands. “Oh, god,” he groans. “Ellie. She doesn’t know a thing about this mess.”  
  
A sharp intake of air to his side indicates that Nora hadn’t thought of that, either. She echoes his thoughts: “Shit.” Her fingers tap on the counter anxiously for a few seconds before she suddenly stands up. “Okay. I’m gonna go talk to her, get her up to speed. Just so all this…” She gestures to, well… all of him. “…Isn’t a _total_ shock.”  
  
He nods. “Appreciate it.”  
  
“In the meantime, try to eat as much as you can. _Please._ I’ll come get you when she’s all caught up.” And off she goes.  
  
Nick turns his attention back to his bowl. “Well… bottoms up, I guess.” Once he starts drinking the broth, he gets almost all of it down without stopping once. He _is_ pretty hungry, after all.


	5. Return

When Nora opens the front door of Valentine’s Detective Agency, a sharp movement catches her eye. Ellie’s head pops up from the front desk like she’s been caught sleeping on the job—which she has been, in a way. Nora moves inside and quietly closes the door behind her, not wanting to startle the woman any more than she already has.  
  
“Sorry,” says Nora. “Didn’t mean to interrupt your nap.”  
  
Ellie blinks rapidly until her vision seems to clear. Her skin is sallow, and there are dark rings around her eyes. “Oh, it’s you.” She sounds… _almost_ happy about that, so Nora takes it as a sign she hasn’t disturbed her too much. “I thought…well, it doesn’t matter.” Her eyes flick over Nora’s shoulder, as if expecting the door to open again. “Where’s Nick? Isn’t he with you?”  
  
“He’s… uh. No, not right this minute.” How to even start? It’s been a hell of a few days, charged with so many emotions that condensing it into an easily digestible story would feel like betraying the reality. Nora bites her cheek as she works out what she’s going to say. Probably should have done that sooner.  
  
But then Ellie stands up, looking even more wan and exhausted now that she’s closer to the light. “Nora.” Said woman’s eyes widen. She doesn’t think she’s ever heard Ellie address her by name. At least not in such a distinctive tone. “You told me you’d be borrowing him for the afternoon. That was _four days_ ago.”  
  
Nora cringes. She did say that, didn’t she? “I know. I’m sorry. It’s been a… busy few days. Let me start from the beginning.”  
  
And she does. Except then she starts thinking maybe she should have started from the end instead, because as soon as she mentions Nick getting hurt (using only the vaguest language available), she can _see_ Ellie’s heart plummet into her stomach. In her hurry to head off the panic, she skips straight past the middle of the story to reassure her that he’s alive, he’s fine, he’s in one piece, he’s in Diamond City Market right now. At which point Ellie insists on going to see him, but Nora takes her by the arm and halts her with a Very Important Look.  
  
“Sit down.”  
  
Reluctantly, Ellie does.  
  
And then Nora explains in a little more detail, with a little more tact, what happened. Ellie absorbs it silently, her emotions communicated only through the occasional flickering of her eyes. The woman has a decent poker face. Must be a good asset in the detective business, but it makes Nora anxious to know what’s going on in her head.  
  
Finally, Nora pauses for air. She’s recounted up to the point where she got hold of a synth body to transfer Nick into (she doesn’t know how much Ellie knows about the Railroad, or how much she _should_ know, so she leaves their involvement out). Ellie looks like she’s contemplating something, so Nora lets the silence settle for a good thirty seconds.  
  
“So…” Ellie starts. “He’s in a different body now?”  
  
“Right.”  
  
Ellie nods like she’s already accepted this information, easy-peasy, but there’s a wrinkle creasing her forehead. “But his thoughts, his memories, his… personality. All of that is the same, right?”  
  
Nora puts on her best impression of somebody who knows what they’re talking about. “Absolutely. It’s not like what happened to the human Nick. He’s not a different person than he was four days ago. He knew what was happening—what was going to happen to him in the Memory Den. He’s the same old Nick we know and love. It’s just that he’s got a… bit of a new look, that’s all.” And new dietary needs. And a new sleeping pattern. And probably some new complications toward his ongoing identity crisis. Nora sighs and rubs her forehead to soothe her thoughts.  
  
The explanation does seem to bring Ellie some relief, thank god. Her shoulders lower just a pinch. “That _is_ going to take some getting used to, but I’ll live. Could I ask… what does he look like? Not that it matters, I just don’t want to go gawking at him like a fish out of water when I see him.”

“He’s…” Oh lord. She hasn’t forgotten the image of his face hovering over her as she drifted off to sleep, nor what she was thinking at the time. Being bent over a desk in black and white, her whole world narrowed down to the touch of his lips… Her reputation could be at stake here. She clears her throat, tries to make her voice disinterested. “Well, he's... distinguished. Looks like he's about thirty-five, forty years old. He has the same eyes he did before.”  
  
One of Ellie’s eyebrows goes up. “His old eyes synced up with new synth tech? How did you manage that?”  
  
“Bit of surgical trickery. You know how Dr. Amari is." Does she? Has Ellie ever even left Diamond City? Nora surges onward to avoid bringing up Tinker Tom. "Anyway, he has about the same height and build he used to. Easy on the eyes… Have you ever seen any of those film noir classics? Last night the light hit him just right, and I kinda thought he...”  
  
“…Looks like an old movie detective?” The other eyebrow has joined the first. She bites her lip, but the smile underneath isn’t deterred.  
  
“A _little_.” A lot. “At least that’s what I thought when I first saw him.” Her face is red, isn’t it? God damn it must be red.  
  
And then, of all things, Ellie _laughs,_ and Nora thinks she might actually be off the hook for almost getting her boss killed. “Well, it’s certainly appropriate, if not a little on the nose.” She rises from her seat and rolls her shoulders, looking more awake than she has during this entire exchange. “Now I’d like to actually _see_ him, if you don’t mind. Assuming you’re done holding me here in preparation.”  
  
There’s that fire, that same edge that was in her voice when Nora first entered the detective agency all those months ago, not knowing the titular detective had gone missing. It’s nice to know the worry hasn’t stripped her of that. “Actually, he’d rather come here. Privacy and all. I told him I’d get him after we talked.”  
  
“Alright. Don’t keep me waiting too long. I’m eager to see my handsome film star of a boss.”  
  
Nora’s heart stutters. “You might not want to mention that to him. I’m not sure how he’d feel about me making comparisons.” Especially _that_ comparison. Nobody needs to find out what she was thinking about when he put her to bed last night. And besides that, there's the possibility that he might be hurt by such a thing. _No matter what he does, he can’t escape being compared to people who haven’t existed for centuries,_ she thinks guiltily. He might figure she’ll never see him the same way again now that he looks like a different person. He would wave it off, of course, all casual-like, but she’d like to think she knows him well enough by now to recognize a twinge in his expression when she sees it—even if the expression is on a different face. No, she’ll be keeping that little secret in her mind’s vault.  
  
With a parting nod, she swings the door open and heads back out. The last sound Ellie must hear before the door closes is a startled “Oh!”  
  
\--  
  
Nick stands in the alley outside his office, feeling like an intruder in his own home. With his back pressed against the cool metal wall, he imagines his skin is more sensitive, his detection of temperatures more acute, than ever before. He imagines, but it’s probably just a trick of the mind. His old rubbery skin could feel temperature just fine. But everything is new now, even the things that aren’t, because they’re accompanied by the knowledge that _he’s_ new, and that all the old is in the past, inaccessible except through memories.  
  
The brim of his hat dips below the line of his eyes, discouraging passing residents from looking too long or too hard. Out of the corners of their eyes, they might even be fooled into thinking this is good ol’ Nick, their familiar metal sleuth. Eerily illuminated by the neon pink light of the agency sign, he might make for a dashing and mysterious silhouette, if not for his awkwardly outstretched hands that are holding a noodle bowl each. They’re both unfinished—Nora’s because she left in a hurry, his because if he tried to choke down one more bite he was sure it’d come back up, and that’s not a trick he’s itching to try with his brand new stomach. His arms are getting tired.  
  
He tilts his head up when Nora comes out the door at a swift pace. She doesn’t notice him at first. For a lack of available hands to stop her with, he simply presses himself as close to the wall as he can to avoid a collision.

“Oh!” She practically jumps, her eyes going comically wide. It goes a little way toward lightening his mood. “Nick, I didn’t see you. Why are you here?”  
  
“Sorry. I know you wanted me to wait, but I was getting too many questions I didn’t know how to answer.”  
  
He was getting too many looks, too. He watched with icy nerves as the occasional few recognized his outfit. A grunt was his only answer to more than one occurrence of “You new around here?” and “Say, do I know you? You seem familiar.” How exactly was he supposed to respond to that? Explain the circumstances to anyone willing to listen, hope they wouldn’t take him for some messed up Institute replacement, and ask them politely not to shoot him? At one point he found himself thinking this was all a mistake. But which part? Nora saving his life? Him agreeing to it? Coming home? None of those things were wrong. He just had to step back, take a deep breath, and remind himself to take it one day at a time. And then get the hell out of there, because he needed a damn cigarette.  
  
Still does, in fact.  
  
“I could use a cigarette,” he mumbles, then lifts up her bowl. “Mind taking this? The new muscles are startin’ to riot.”  
  
She does so. “Ellie’s ready to see you. And you have _lungs_ now, Nick, smoking is bad for you.”  
  
“No worse than the radiation and the deathclaws.” He adjusts his hat. “Wish me luck.”  
  
“I’ll be right behind you.”  
  
What a sight they must be, coming in from the sunset-dimmed alleyway, wearing twin expressions of solemn anticipation while holding onto a couple bowls of soggy noodles. As soon as he gets near enough to the desk, he sets his down. Ellie’s shoes are the first he sees of her. It’s even more difficult to lift his eyes up than he imagined.  
  
“Nick… I almost didn’t believe it, but…”  
  
She’s got her hand on her chest. Her mouth is slightly agape, and her eyes are wide and wet, and he thinks for a fleeting moment she must be… disappointed. Disgusted. Some kind of dis- that he doesn’t want to see on her, of all people. But the sensible part of his brain tells him he knows that look—it’s the look she got when he strolled into the office after Skinny Malone held him captive for two weeks.  
  
He takes a nervous breath. Doffs his hat, hangs it on the corner of a cabinet. Takes a step forward, giving her an eyeful of him in better lighting. Tries to think of a witty quip to put her at ease and cover up his own insecurity.  
  
“Well, uh…” Turns out, he doesn’t need to think of anything. Ellie closes the distance quickly—not _too_ quickly, not enough to startle him, but enough to put her arms around him before he can get another word in. Nick finds himself willingly trapped in the squeezing, clinging embrace of someone who is genuinely happy to see him. His arms are acting in kind before he can even tell them to. It does something funny to his heart, feeling the weight of her head on his shoulder, her entire body pressed against him, full contact, no hesitation. Warm. (Maybe he can feel temperature better than before, after all.)  
  
“Ellie…”  
  
“I’m glad you’re okay.”  
  
“I… wasn’t sure you’d recognize me.”  
  
He can feel her head shaking side to side on his shoulder. “I know you, boss. Even if you turned into a molerat overnight, you couldn’t hide from me.”

She doesn’t break the hug for what feels like a few minutes. When she does, her hands rise up to cradle his face and she gives his eyes a good, long look. Her lips curl into a watery smile. His old eyes must be the clincher, he thinks. The little detail that convinces her that yes, this really is him, and no he hasn’t changed. For the second time in as many days, he’s grateful to have kept them. He raises his own hand up and wipes a stray tear off her cheek with his thumb.  
  
Then he smirks. “Figured it was about time I upgraded to a younger model. The missing pieces gave me character, no doubt, but the ladies just weren’t lining up like they used to.”  
  
She gives his cheek a light smack, grinning.  
  
“Oh, I dunno about that.” Nora’s voice makes both Nick and Ellie stiffen. Ellie’s hands drop down to her sides as if burned. “You always got some offers from the women of Goodneighbor, if I recall…”  
  
Nick slowly turns his head until he can see Nora standing behind him out of the corner of his eye. Her crossed arms and wide smile tell the story. _I saw it all, and I’m going to tease you about it later, you sappy old man._  
  
He makes a show of stepping away from Ellie and raising his hands innocently.  
  
“And to think,” Ellie says, “I’ve worked for you all this time without ever having the pleasure of seeing you blush.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Usually I can crank a chapter out in one sitting if I focus, but this one took several days... I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, at least.


	6. Sleep Mode

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's Day! I figured it was appropriate to update today of all days, so I forsook all my responsibilities to crank out the latest chapter :)

“…And make sure he _eats_ something tonight,” Nora continues. “In the last four days he’s had nothing but a bite of noodles and half a bowl of broth.”

“I’ll have you know that after you left, I took two more bites before calling it quits.”

“Golly, I’m so proud,” she deadpans.

Ellie comes up behind him and gives him a pat on the back. "Don't worry. I'll make sure he takes good care of himself."

Nick can recognize when he's being teased. He huffs a little sigh at Ellie, then fixes Nora with an exaggeratedly stern gaze. "Get outta here. You've got better things to worry about than an old synth missing his supper."

"You underestimate my ability to multitask. I can worry about four or five things at once. Six if I put my mind to it."

"Go on." He makes a good-natured shooing motion.

Nora tsks. "Fine, I'll leave you alone. But I'm coming back to check on you in the morning. And I'm bringing breakfast. And I expect you to eat it."

He just continues his gesture until she shakes her head and leaves with a wave of her hand.

The door clicks closed, and then it's just him and Ellie.

He sighs fondly. "Mark of a mother—trying to keep everybody well fed at all times."

"More the mark of a grandmother, in my experience," Ellie remarks, leaning against the desk.

"Well, she _is_ over 200 years old."

She shakes her head. “I will never get over that. You attract the most interesting people, Nick.”

He makes a vague sound of agreement in his throat. Neither of them says anything for awhile. The air feels heavy, and Nick is reminded of his pressing need for a smoke. He really _should_ consider the ramifications of getting hooked in nicotine, though, now that he has the capacity. At least he assumes he does. “So, is this the part where we dispense with the small talk and get down to brass tacks?”

She sighs. "I guess it is." When she looks at him, her eyes are pinched and sad. It takes some stern self-control not to turn away. "I won't lie to you, Nick, it's going to be weird for a while. I'm sure I don't have to tell you that. But it's like I told Nora—when you get down to it, it doesn't matter. Appearances change for everybody. People get old, they get scarred. Hell, some people pay good money to get a different face every couple years."

"I could name a guy or two,” he says.

"Exactly. But I'll get used to it. And it’s not _my_ feelings that are most important anyhow.”

“Before you go asking, I’m fine. I’ve had some practice with the whole body-switching scenario, remember?” Her face is the picture of skepticism, but she lets it slide. “Honestly, about the best thing I can do for myself right now is dive into a case—take my mind off all this.”

“Well, feelings aside, Nora’s got the right idea. You need to look after your needs before anything else, and I don’t just mean tonight. No working, not for a few days at least. If I know you—and I do—you’re gonna need reminding to do… human things… for a while.”

“Ellie…”

“Nick.”

She won’t be budged, and he knows that like he knows the sun will rise, but he has to give it a go anyway, for the sake of familiarity if nothing else. “I’m not the kind of person who gets so caught up in work he forgets to take care of himself.”

“That’s _exactly_ the kind of person you are.” She gestures at him emphatically. “If left to your own devices, you’d run three days straight on nothing but twelve cups of coffee.”

A little memory perks up, just for a second— _“Nick, put the mug down,” says Jenny, twinkling. “I can see you vibrating from over here.”_ While he’d really like to deny it a second time, well… she _does_ know him. He takes a different route. “I’ve got too many cases in the pipeline to put my feet up. You know how this goes, Ell—half these folks will have been kidnapped by raiders, some’ll be dead in a ditch somewhere, a couple will be runaways. The ones that are alive, and the families of the ones that aren’t—they don’t have the time to wait for me to get used to some new hardware.”

An overly sweet smile spreads across Ellie’s pink lips, and he knows it’s strike two. “If only you had a partner, or an assistant who’s worked with you for almost five years… Oh, wait! You have both those things. What luck.”

“Ah… has it really been that long?”

“Next month’ll be five.”

“Time sure flies…” He’ll buy her a bottle of celebratory wine, assuming she lets him get back to work by then.

“Quit stalling, Nick. Did you have a third objection, or are you ready to throw in the towel early this time?”

It’s out of tradition, more than any distant hoping of winning her over, that he says, “Nora shouldn’t have to deal with my laundry list. She has settlements to manage, an army to command. And I’m sure as heck not sending you out to some raiders’ den in search of a nabbed husband or wife.”

Her hair bounces as she shakes her head. “You know as well as I do that she wouldn’t mind one bit. She loves putting on the trench coat and fedora, almost as much as she loves getting you out of a jam. I can deal with the brain work while she goes out in the field. Unless you think I’m not up to the task?”

Stee-rike, he’s out. He hmms with resignation. “No, Ellie, you know the business as well as I do. And you’re sharp as a tack. I’m sure you could handle it.”

He decides he’ll call her smirk _victorious_ rather than smug. “Good. Then it’s settled. You sit back for the next few days and take it easy. Get your bearings.” She nods toward the desk. “You can start by finishing that bowl you brought in.”

Somehow, the noodles even _look_ cold, sitting there in their bath of still brown liquid.

“Actually, I was hoping you’d be willing to finish ‘er off. I like Takahashi alright, but now that I’ve tried it, I can’t say I’m a fan of his cooking. Who knew, huh?”

She frowns and looks like she’s about to start Persuasion Number Two. But Nick doesn’t make it a habit to cave twice in one night.

“I’ll stay put the next few days, you have my word. And no working either. But you’re gonna have to be patient with me on the dining bit. It’s been a long time since I put anything in my mouth I couldn’t smoke.” He hasn’t even tried to since he was fresh out of the garbage heap, in fact, way back when he hadn’t yet pieced together what he was, and who he wasn’t. Nothing tasted right. Eating meat was like chewing on soggy cork, and hooch tasted like battery acid. He didn’t experiment for long. “Besides, I… don’t think I could eat another bite anyway.”

“But you’ve hardly had any…”

The stomach will shrink if it stays empty for a long time, says a rusty old fact in the back of his brain. Go for a day without eating and your next meal will have to be a small one. Go _four_ days without eating, you’re probably a synth. “It was enough. I feel fine, anyhow.”

Her lips turn into thin lines. “It’s not normal to be fine without eating for so long.”

_It’s not normal to go that long without even realizing you’re hungry,_ he thinks. That part might be worthy of concern, though, so he keeps it to himself. “I may be new at this, but I’m a grown man. Or a reasonable facsimile, anyway. I think I can judge where my needs lie on my own. And if I can’t, well, there are worse ways in the Commonwealth to die than starving in your sleep in the comfort of your own home.”

Ellie sucks in a breath. “Don’t joke like that, Nick. You almost _did_ die. And if your luck had been a tick worse than it was, I might’ve never even found out how.”

A shard of guilt pokes him in the chest. It occurs to Nick that she’s probably more traumatized by the thought of him getting ripped in half than he is. He’ll have to keep that in mind in future talks like this, of which there are bound to be many. “Aw, Ellie… I’m sorry. Don’t mind me, I’m just running my mouth.”

She pushes herself away from the desk and takes a step forward. Her hands twitch upward about two inches before falling back to her sides. It looks like she wants to put a hand on his shoulder or something like that. He’s not sure if he would welcome any more contact now that the mood of the room has shifted, so he decides to just silently thank her for her discretion. Her mouth opens, but when no sound comes out, she sighs and apparently rethinks whatever she wanted to say. “I’m gonna go get you some things. You’ll need a comb, a toothbrush… I think I have a spare tube of toothpaste somewhere around here.” She appears to think for a moment. “At this hour, I should be dealing with Myrna’s robot instead of the woman herself. Thank god for small mercies.”

Nick looks at her sympathetically. Myrna always puts up a fight when Ellie goes to shop at the general store, knowing that she works with “the synth.” No idea how the lady thinks Ellie’s going to help him infiltrate society by buying typewriter ink. “I owe you one, and I want you to hold me to that.”

She shoots him a smile over her shoulder as she’s leaving, a genuine one. “You can make it up to me by going to sleep at a reasonable hour tonight.”

“Will do,” he says, and returns the expression as best he can.

Before she gets to the entryway, she stops and looks at him again. “Do you need a razor, you think? Do synths grow facial hair?… Does their hair grow at all?”

He opens his mouth, takes a breath, and feels his brows furrow as he realizes he has no idea. That’s not a new feeling, the last few days. “You know, I couldn’t say. I’d give you the user’s manual if I had it handy.”

“Well… better safe than sorry.” She turns the corner and disappears.

Finally alone, Nick falls into the desk chair behind him with an audible thud and a creak of overused wood. He heaves a sigh. What might have been a nightmare in any other circumstances has turned into a gimmick flick, and a poorly lit one at that. He’s gotta count himself lucky to have friends in his life who are so adaptable, and careful, and caring—for _him_ in particular, because he knows not a lot of people would be. Even so, the domesticity of the scene is messing with his sense of the strange. His life has always been the stuff of sci-fi, with a dash of action and a heavy shroud of mystery, but lately the director has been making some questionable choices. Namely, turning the tin man into a real boy. And now Nick’s secretary is off to the market to buy him some everyman-type accessories, while his lovely partner is planning to make him breakfast tomorrow morning. Things couldn’t get any more mixed up if they—

“Oh, and one more thing.”

Nick and the chair both nearly fall over backwards. He finds one hand naturally falling on the left side of his chest, where he can feel a quickened beating through his clothes. “Jesus, Ellie!”

“Sorry.” The twinkle in her eye doesn’t look very sorry. “It’s just, in case you need it, the nearest bathroom is—“

He puts a hand up to stop her. “I know where it is.”

“Oh, good. Do you know how to—?”

“ _Yes_ ,” he interrupts, more forcefully than he probably should. He clears his throat. “Yeah, I do. No worries on that front.” The skin on his face feels hot and damp.

“Okay, I’m going. For real this time.” With a little smile that suggests she knows she made him blush, she turns to leave again.

“And Ellie—there’s some money in a tin behind the coat rack. Don’t go spending your earnings on my behalf.”

Ellie hums her understanding. Notably, he doesn’t hear the sound of caps jingling in a tin before the door opens and closes. What did he do to deserve that girl?

\--

When she goes to bed that night, surrounded by the uncomfortable silence of a flat with only one occupant, Nora is sure she’ll dream of super mutants and frying circuits. Instead, she dreams of dancing.

Nate takes her by the hand and kisses it like the gentleman he isn’t, all wide grins and jokingly lascivious eyebrow wiggles. She chuckles at him and accepts the gesture like a proper lady, but it’s she who leads him through a field of starlight and begins the dance. It’s just the two of them at the start, but by bits and pieces, other people fade into existence around them. Even in her dreams (is what she would think if she _could_ think in dreams), everyone is white except the two of them. All those people looking on, but they’re not judging—not here, not when she’s in control. No, they’re enraptured. She and Nate are a pair of black silhouettes against a brilliant backdrop. The floor is liquid marble and there’s a clear sky above them, black and purple and dotted with pinpricks of light that flicker like winking eyes. She dips him, and then he dips her, and she closes her eyes as her vision goes upside-down.

He pulls her up and she looks into glowing yellow eyes. The onlookers are gone, and the night sky is now a proper ballroom. They keep dancing, a swirl of dark brown and weathered gray. Somehow, she manages to get her hands everywhere they want to go without breaking the rhythm. Her fingers skirt across broken flesh and explore the machinery inside. Her hand locks with spidery metal, and it’s warm and thrumming like something alive. Nick smiles at her with his whole face, but she knows he’s sad.

“Look at me. I’m trash.” His voice is low and sweet and aching.

“No. You’re my treasure.”

There’s a stranger watching, a stranger in a dusty coat and hat. He looks human but so unfamiliar, and when he looks up she sees her partner's eyes mirrored on his face.

With a chill of fear creeping over her, she keeps dancing. The stranger advances.

He stops in front of her. She doesn’t even realize Nick is gone.

“Am I?”

It’s Nick in the background now. Over the stranger’s shoulder, she glimpses a cloud of black smoke emerging from the holes in his body as his arm falls to the ground. The skin on his face begins to peel like old wallpaper. His legs crumble underneath him, and his lifeless torso hits the floor with a hollow, understated clank.

She looks at the stranger’s face and can’t find an answer.

When she wakes up, she won’t remember the next part of the dream. The part where, without explanation, Nick is whole again and comes up to her and the stranger with a tip of his hat. The part where, somehow, the three of them are transported to a dimly lit room scattered with lightly scented candles and rose petals. The part where she takes the stranger into her mouth and Nick into her pussy and they rock her back and forth between them like she weighs nothing. The part where she comes, and comes, and comes, and finally, feeling like she’s full of stars, she leans up with the handsome stranger’s help and locks lips with Nick, combining the taste of the stranger’s semen with his natural metallic tang.

When she wakes up, the only indicator of that part at all will be the intense, inexplicable, undeniable need to get off, _now._ And as she comes for real, on her lonely little sheet-less mattress on the second floor of Home Plate, she is overcome with a deep, despairing sadness, because she never got to find out what Nick’s old lips tasted like.

\--

Brushing his teeth is more tedious than he remembers. The mint is too strong, and a bit stale. He keeps inspecting his work with his tongue, only to find a tiny bit more unsatisfactory plaque in the crevices, and the whole process has to start again. All in all, he brushes his teeth a total of four times.

He does end up using the bathroom that night (which is really nothing more than an outhouse next to Abbot’s shed), and it’s exactly as unpleasant to his newly tuned senses as he imagined. But it could be worse. Even if he can’t tell when he’s hungry or tired or needs some water, he’s glad he remembers how to do that, if nothing else.

Ellie even manages to wrangle some nightwear for him—a T-shirt and sweatpants, both of them woefully unstylish, but possessing a level of softness and pliancy that he didn’t know he was craving.

What she can’t do, however, is get his brain to turn off.

He lays in bed now—a bed that formerly went unused for months at a time, only weighed down by the occasional need for a longer-than-usual diagnostic rest. He stares at the stairs above, hands folded on top of his chest, listening to the sound of his own breathing, and the fainter sound of Ellie shifting in her bed upstairs.

An hour passes.

Two hours pass.

The night passes.

He can’t fucking sleep.


End file.
